Civil Rights During the War

Civil Rights During the War

Asa Philip Randolph • Father of the Civil Rights Movement c. 1912 1972

Asa Philip Randolph • Skilled labor in defense industry was left to white people. • APR was a socialist…he agreed with Lenin that World War I had been a result of capitalism

Asa Philip Randolph Government funded training programs excluded Blacks…simply because Whites prohibited them from filling skilled positions – No reason to waste government money

MOWM March on Washington Movement

MOWM • Randolph – “we ought to get 10,000 Negroes and march down Pennsylvania Avenue asking for jobs in defense plants and integration of the armed forces.”

MOWM • What would be the impact of 10,000 Blacks marching on Washington, D.C. in 1941?

MOWM • The number actually approached 100,000. • The threat caused FDR to sign Executive Order 8802

MOWM • Executive Order 8802 • The order required all federal agencies and departments involved with defense production to ensure that vocational and training programs were administered without discrimination as to "race, creed, color, or national origin." • All defense contracts were to include provisions that barred private contractors from discrimination as well.

Civil Rights • The MOWM led to many changes • Inspired the next generation to follow the course of non-violent civil disobedience

CORE • Congress of Racial Equality

CORE • Non-violent civil disobedience to aid the discrimination cause in the 1940’s.

Executive Order 9066 • Internment of Japanese, German, and Italian Americans during WW II. • Japanese were hit the hardest because of the large propaganda campaign

A historical fact that is not really "common knowledge" is the fact that, during World War II, over 100,000 Japanese-American individuals, the vast majority of which were actually American citizens, were rounded up and shipped eventually to internment camps. These consisted of poorly-constructed barracks surrounded by barbed wire, sentry posts and armed guards.

They were put in these camps, not because they had been tried and found guilty of something, but because either they or their parents or ancestors were from Japan and, as such, they were deemed a "threat" to national security. They were also easily identifiable due to their race. There was no similar large-scale roundups of German or Italian-Americans, even though we were also fighting them during World War II.

These people were forced to abandon their businesses, their homes and, in many cases, their families as some individuals were taken elsewhere and held, again without trial, for years. The Japanese-Americans suffered severe economic losses, personal humiliation and, in a some cases, death, due to this relocation. The relocation itself was ordered by the then President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and by an act of Congress.

Supreme Court Support • Hirubayashi v. US – curfew for Japanese-Americans • Korematsu v. US – upheld right to internment

Public Law 100-383 • Apology by U.S. Government for Internment • Each person was to receive $20,000 in tax free payments over a 10 year period • Most did not take the money

Civil Rights During the War